Rockfishes and Deep Sea Community

Rockfish are an important fish regularly caught by recreational sportfishermen. Information on rockfish populations within the Southern California Bight is limited due to the lack of studies aimed at tracking population densities and fish size distributions over time. Most of the information available is from intermittent fisheries catch data, which is not ideal for monitoring trends in abundance. Research at the SWFSC aims to quantify and obtain size estimates for rockfish and characterize rockfish habitat by means of sonar or acoustic surveys.